The Crisis of Louis Graves
by SwingingInTheWind
Summary: When a paranoid, territorial writer in some serious issues accidentally orders some Hetalia Units, she struggles to stay hidden and, more importantly, alive with her new-found housemates. Inspired by Lollidictator's Hetalia Unit Manuals.
1. Prologue

**A/N: After reading the "Hetalia Unit Manual" series by Lollidictator, along with a few humorous fanfictions, I decided it would be quite the idea to come up with one for myself. So here it is- my very first fiction published to . Review and Critique; please, do NOT go easy on me! **

So here I am, running for my life from a man in a black suit, a seemingly girlish-looking boy at my side. All the while I am asking myself, _how in the name of God almighty did I get myself into this?_ Not even a month ago, I was almost done with my secrecy- I almost moved away from the underground of the mansion that I never could call my home, for reasons that will later be explained; I almost finished the masterpiece that would keep me out of debt for about two, if I was lucky possibly even three, years; I was so close, so unbelievably _close_ to the life of a master as opposed to the life of a rat, and then it all just slipped away...  
And there I was, running away from a man in a black suit, a manuscript of my life's toils held under my arm, a person who was not even a true _person_ running at my side, barking military orders I've never even heard of before at me.  
Let's rewind, shall we?

My name is Mary Graves, and I call myself Louis. Now, if that on its own somewhat bothered you, then do not read this story. Do not read this manuscript that is now floating about on the world of the Internet and will never, ever be removed completely. Do not ask why I call myself Louis, it is just what I call myself- if "Tondayala"s and "Antoine"s in the world can call themselves "Toni"s, I do not see what is stopping me from going from "Mary" to "Louis". Besides, I am quite _fond_ of the name "Louis", thank you for asking.  
I came from a well-off family, something you most certainly could _not _tell from the place I had learned to call my abode as of five, maybe even six years. If you are wondering what my abode is, then I will tell you; I live in the basement level of a mansion that I do not own. The family that lives there- the Baravians- has no idea what-so-ever that under their feet is a living, breathing young woman that is using the old desktop of theirs that they put there and forgot about. They have no idea that the young woman who lives there is the "rat infestation" responsible for their missing cold-cuts and just so happens to know the house she's only lived under for a few years much better than the family who has had this house handed down to them "generation after generation", to quote Mr. John Baravian.  
I, myself, do not even know how I came to be like this- ten years ago I was still living with my parents in Connecticut, and now here I was in the underground of a mansion in upstate New York, which was _hours_ away from my original destination of New York City. Here I was, months before the time to flee for my life came, living the dream of every aspiring writer.  
Or, at least, I was _trying_ to.

I had a brother who was in some governmental... _shit,_ seeing as I can find no other word to describe his predicament; he had ran away when I was only nineteen and the next thing I knew, he was number five on "America's Most Wanted" list. However, despite the fact that no one other than his new-found "brothers", as he called them, were supposed to know where he is, something possessed him to keep his communication-related ties with me.

Basically, I was the one who got him out of deep shit, so he could go back to doing his normal shit.

What I _think_ happened was this- over time, he got quite used to me being there to back him up (even though I was often on the other side of the nation when he needed his "backup plan" to be initiated), and then started to expand our sibling relationship into a matter of which played quite a large role in the government-related deep shit he was in: Money.

I wanted to become a famous writer, and he knew that. He thought that my work was good, and he began to compromise with his "brothers" and with me. His original plan went like this; I write something, be it an article or a poem or a short story, and send it to him. He then brings it to "Big Brother" (who is apparently the Monarch of this underground kingdom of crime) who sends the literature, _my _literature, to a random publishing company under the name of "L. M. Arkenson". In the end, the work is printed and I receive 20% of the funds.

Just so you know, 20% of anything from my brother is more than just generous, it's _saint-like_.

One day, instead of receiving checks and bills I began receiving emails. Expecting to find some form of currency, I found deadlines and death threats; apparently, the public wanted a _novel_ (not a short story, a full-blown _novel_) from Mister Arkenson. As you can imagine, the first words that I was able to conger up from my mind were as follows: "What... the actual... fuck... is this...?"

After many phone calls and threats from my brother's "brothers", I set to work on my first novel. (I think the crowning jewel on all of this was that a lesser-known "brother" was going to be appearing as Mister Arkenson and my original 20% income would become about .5% in a matter of months) A piece of my mind knew that I had crossed the Rubicon when I first agreed to this deal, but I didn't listen to it.

Boy, do I wish I did now.

I barely remember the manuscript I was working on when I first saw the pop-up which brought me into this nonsense- something along the lines of _Among the Shadows. _Or was it called _Dancing with the Shadows_...? Oh, but I remember the pop-up by heart- it was a pale ivory square with black, bold, Helvetica lettering loudly advertising "Hetalia Units". At least, it was black until you rolled your mouse over it- then it began to change colors.

I do not understand _why_ it changed colors, but it did, so I shall leave it at that.

Also, when you rolled your mouse over it, the text on the pop-up began to change; one second it was saying "FREE! Hetalia Units!", the next it said "FREE shipping!". I think what made me click on the pop-up was when the text changed to "Earn LOTS of MONEY; Just fill out the information!"

Money.

_Lots of money._

For a split second, I was in something many people would call ecstasy- money would get me out of here, money would be able to extend the deadline of my work being due (by some incredible feat which I had not yet figured out), money would be able to hide me from my brother and his "brothers", money would be able to buy me that really nice Mazerati car that I wanted for my twentieth birthday but never got...

Oh, I am such a shallow young fool.

I figured, "Well, if there is information to fill out, it will probably tell me what it is," and so I clicked it. That was the second biggest mistake I have ever made in my entire life.

It turns out that there was no information to fill out- just a timer that read clearly at the top "Your first unit will arrive to (my old address- I do not want any "brothers" finding this and try hunting me down for my manuscript, therefore I will not fill it out.) in:" and then, at the bottom, was a timer that ticked its way to my doom.

"17:29:56"

Doing the conversion of metric time to American time in my head, I later learned that my first "unit" (whatever the hell that was) happened to be arriving to me in a place I _was not supposed to inhabit_ at...

8:30 am, tomorrow.

"Oh..."

8:30 is when Mr. John Baravian left for work.

"_Oh_..."

Mrs. Anne Baravian would be reading in the den at that very moment.

"Oh dear God, _no..."_

Evangeline Baravian - beautiful, gentle Evangeline Baravian, with her long locks of red, curly hair that looked so soft I imagine her father stole it from the angels themselves - would be home, seeing as tomorrow was Saturday.

"What have I done?"

Naturally, the first thing I tried to do was cancel the order- turns out, pop-ups that involve ordering things are even _less_ merciful than pop-ups that do not, and while pop-ups that don't involve ordering things have quick, easy "x" buttons devoted to getting you out of the situation you brought yourself into, these product-purchasing pop-ups had no means of canceling an order or closing the timer window.

"C-Cameron!" I squeaked into the halls as I hyperventilated, _oh God I am going to die, oh God I am going to die, oh God I am going to DIE..._

"No need to shout," came the low, quiet voice of Cameron Shylers, the head butler and one of the many workers who operate this household that I was privileged enough to call "my friends".

"Gah!" I shrieked, the scrawny-looking guy had such a knack for sneaking up behind people it wasn't even funny. Oh, alright, sometimes it was, but at this moment it was not funny at all. "Don'tdothat!" I hissed, cowering behind the wooden chair I spent so much time in.

"It's only me, Ma-" I shot him a look, "Louis." Much better.

"That's the scariest part..." I whined, beckoning him over with a rough wave of my hand and pointing to the screen. "Actually, this is the scary part." I saw him look at the screen, then back at me, then back at the screen, then back at me. Sadly, the first thing he said when he looked back at me the third and final time was this;

"You are such an idiot."

_Oh, you have __no idea__, Cameron. No idea at all._

"Y-You're rather chipper today, ain't you?" I said back in a tiny voice, a very nervous laugh trailing at the end of it.

"Do you know what you've done?" he suddenly hissed- I had never seen him show such emotion before, so I was in too much of a state of shock too great to conger up something defiant to say in response.

"...uh..."

See? Great state of shock, right there.

"You dunce!" Cameron snarled, bringing his forehead into his palm in irritation, "Of all the possible anime units out there, you ordered _Hetalia_ ones! HETALIA! Really, Louis?"

...so he'd heard of this kind of stuff, eh?

"...uh..."

As you can tell, I had not yet recovered from my shock; however, that slap to the cheek directed by him brought me out of that as quickly as I got into it.

"Ouch!" I yelped, turning my face away from him and rubbing my cheek.

"You deserved it," he answered coolly, his voice shaking in the slightest, most Cameron-like manner, "What on earth did you get yourself into?"

"I was just going to ask you!" I groaned, banging my head on the table where the keyboard to the computer, _that damned computer_, was sitting nonchalantly.

"Well, why would you ask me?" he grumbled in vexation, trying to pull my head up by the short locks of unclean, unconditioned brown hair that sat atop my head.

"You're smart," I grumbled back, refusing to let him pluck my head from the table. I could practically hear him rolling his bright green eyes as he huffed (and he puffed, and blew the house down). It took a couple of minutes of useless persuasion, but eventually, he began to crack.

"So what if I know what it is?" he muttered, earning a rather sudden "Aha!" from me, resulting in a jump. A _jump_! I made Cameron Shylers _jump_, and not just for shits and giggles- in _surprise_! Man, how awesome is _that_?

"Aha!" I shouted, jamming my finger to his chest with a smile that could only be described as _rabid_ etched on my face, "so you _can_ help me out with this!" Cameron huffed again, crossing his arms and looking away.

"Why?" he asked. Now, that could have been taken two ways- either as "_why do you need my help?" _or as "_why should I help you?" _Knowing Cameron, I sided with the latter.

"Because, first off, if your..." _What's the word that would piss him off the most_? "...master," I smirked as he glared at me, "finds out about me, who will get in trouble?"

"..."

"I'm waiting for an answer."

"...me."

"Ding ding ding, we have a winner!" I sneered, crossing my arms and feeling oh-so-very confident. After a minute or two of useless arguing, he finally revealed the information I needed.

1. Hetalia was an Anime.

2. There were only a few sane characters in that anime- the personifications of China, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Liechtenstein, Ukraine, Japan and Canada.

3. Apparently, Cameron Shylers had a secret thing for the personification of Hungary.

4. If I ended up with a Russia, I was going to die.

I don't know about you, but after hearing that I was in a greater state of shock than earlier. My first unit, which could possibly result in my eminent doom, was coming _tomorrow_; my life was officially in ruins.


	2. Cold Pork

As much as I would like to say that I slept or even wrote that night, alas, I cannot. By means of a forceful butler and a very slow Internet I sped the entire night watching the five-minute installments of the Hetalia: Axis Powers series. Never in my entire life was I so bored yet so, so... _intrigued._ Actually, I suppose I was not so much intrigued as I was frightened for my life (and sanity) as I watched the never-leaving timer on my computer tick it's way down from 17:-:- to 5:-:-. You, my friend, do not know what fear is until you are placed in a situation such as this.

Anyway, I ignored Cameron's wishes to me reading the translated web comics on a site he called "Livejournal", for I never did enjoy reading much (ironic, is it not, seeing as the main part of writing is reading and re-reading and editing and re-reading your work once more?), and instead sided with the English-subtitled version of the show (ironic, because I just said that I did not enjoy reading. Oh, I'm just full of oxymorons, aren't I?). _Why are they all five minutes_? I remember asking myself as I read the subtitles, _and that ending song is so... obnoxious!_ Yet, despite how utterly confused I was in the first few episodes of the series and how utterly bothered I was by the way that the personifications of Germany, Italy, Romano, Spain, France and England reacted with one another (I have nothing against homosexuality, just... don't you think that's a bit much?), I found myself watching the series beginning to finish.

_Now what is this _Hetalia: World Series _crap?_ I asked myself when I clicked on the next episode in the playlist, titled as "Hetalia: World Series - Episode 1". _Is it the same thing? The same Germany with the same homosexual desires for the same Italy and the same Japan apologizing for nothing as the same France molests everything in existence?_

Apparently yes, sparing the fact that there were less "Akisu Powasu" (or however they pronounced it) and "Hetaria" (which I later found out to mean "Useless Italy". Oh, you Japanese are lovely, aren't you? [I say that with heavy sarcasm]) in it- it mainly consisted of the other "Nations".

Weird.

I did not notice the timer going from 5:-:- to 2:-:-, nor did I notice Cameron sneaking up from one of the many tunnels in the underground of the mansion, so imagine the terror I was in when he goes behind me and says, in a voice I nearly mistook for the one of the Grim Reaper (the one that tried to kill England in that one episode... Oh damn, I was already making connections):

"You're not finished yet?"

I swear to my mother and father, that man will bring upon me heart attack I will not recover from.

"Jesus Christ!" I shrieked, whipping my head around to face him, instantly feeling my face flow from an expression of fear to an expression of relief, and later an expression of rage. "You idiot!" I shrieked once more, "how many times must I tell you to not sneak up on me like that?"

"But I was not sneaking," he said, sounding quite tired as if he did not get enough sleep that night, "I was just-"

"Rosaria!" I heard John Baravian call for the head maid from upstairs, "fetch me my good coat, will you?"

"R-Right away, s-s-sir!" she stammered in response, and I could hear her healed shoes clicking above us. Out of instinct, I panicked and deleted all windows aside from the timer. _There's still two hours left?_ I asked myself, feeling the blood pound in my head as a horrible thought came into my mind-

_What if the timer stopped?_

"Cameron!" I shrieked, forgetting that he was, in fact, still standing right next to me in the dark, stinky underground.

"Yes?"

"Ahh!" I yelped in surprise, glaring at him and ignoring the fact that is was, in fact, _my fault _for forgetting where he was. "W-What, and he... but the... What time is it?" I hissed at him as he checked his watch.

"Only 6:42," he answered smoothly, checking his watch in the glow of the computer screen.

_That means time itself stopped on us. Oh, I am screwed._

"Why is he _leaving_?" I asked him, gripping the wood of the chair so tightly that I didn't even need to look at my hands to know that my knuckles were turning white.

"Because," he began, inhaling calmly (_why is he so calm?_ I asked myself in rage), "I suggested that he and his wife take a walk at this time- fresh air is good for the body, is it not?"

"... Oh." _I should have thought of that_, I scolded myself, basking in my ever-growing paranoia as well as my ever-decreasing common sense. "Well then, that leaves me with two hours to kill!" I stated brightly as I heard the sound of John and Anne Baravians' footsteps leave the house. Ah, how I love piping systems- they let me know when things were happening as they happened.

Like how Evangeline was waking up right no-

Wait.

"Hm..." I heard through the pipes.

_Oh for the love of God._

"S-She's waking up?" I squeaked out, griping Cameron's shoulder as if it were the chair, "Doesn't she wake up later?"

"Well, I don't know! I'm not her keeper!" he hissed back at me as I heard her light footsteps go down, down the stairs into the living room. Oh, I could see her now- I could see her gracefully striding not in a house, but in a sweet meadow of grass, clad in the silken nightgown she wore... the wind just barely grazing by her in a way that caused said nightgown to flutter with each step as her curly red hair blew behind her, exposing to us all her pale, freckled face I had come to love. When she walked - oh I could see it so clearly! - Even the grass would bow down to her elega-

"Louis, you alright?" came Cameron's voice, erasing the dream as soon as it had appeared.

"Fine," I sighed, still trying to hold on the strands of the dream I had dreamed for so long, _too long_, as they blew away from me by the musky scent of sewage and dust.

_God damn it, I liked that one too._

I quickly shook my head, remembering my place in this mansion as the invisible person who had _ordered accidental money-grabbers that were on their way to this house I am not supposed to be living under oohhhhh I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I died I'm de-_

"Louis!" Cameron hissed, whacking me on the head after checking my history, _nosy little bastard!_

"Ouch! That's the second time tonight you jerk!" I whined, rubbing the place he had smacked me.

"What were you thinking, watching the anime?" he snarled, his face growing red in rage, "I told you to read the web comics! And you didn't even go on Livejournal, you oaf!"

"Oh, so I'm an oaf now?" I asked, "and you know I hate reading!"

"Well, then why are you a writer? Oh, wait, I forgot. _You're not._" he growled. _Who would've thought_, I asked myself, _that he'd get so riled up over a silly kid's show, anyway?_

"Well, that stung," I said simply, far too tired and brainwashed to think of anything to fire back at him. He simply let out a vexed sigh and shook his head at me, as if I were a disobedient child.

"So, who's your favorite character at least?" he asked me, his voice returning to its usual flat state. _Oh, oh okay! _I thought, _simple question... _

"Well I like... I like..." _what were their names?_ "Uh..."

"Well?"

"...The blond one and the one with the, with the... the, you know!" _Breasts,_ I thought to myself, _the one with the breasts._

"... Louis."

"Yes?"

"You do realize how many blonds are in Hetalia, correct?"

_Oh damn, he wanted me to specify now?_

"Uh, uh, he was the one with the uh... or, wait, was it a she? Hard to tell with that hair..." I mused out loud, thinking about the character who was, yes, blond, but had a thing for... no, wait that was someone else...

I heard the slap of skin and I did not even need to look up to know that Cameron Shylers had reached his maximum point of annoyance and was currently smacking his forehead with his palm.

"I'm thinking, I'm thinking!" I whined, trying to remember some other detail about the blond she-man.

"Oh, God, help us all..." he moaned, rolling his eyes at my ignorance to the series. _What was i-?_

"The one who's cheap and... guns and stuff!" I suddenly yelped, remembering another crucial trait to the character whose name escaped me.

"... You mean Switzerland?" he asked me in disbelief.

"So that's who she was!" I said with a grin.

"It's a he, Louis."

"Oh, I knew that," I said with a grin, "and there was another one... the one with the brea-"

"That's Ukraine, Louis," he hissed, covering my mouth before I could finish my sentence, "and it's disrespectful to speak of her in such a way!"

"But she _does_ have them!" I whined in protest against his hand, but since he was, in fact, holding his hand against my mouth, it came out sounding more like "Bmh hm _dnn_ nhnf dm!"

"What?"

And that was when I heard a ring at the doorbell.

_Oh. SHIT._

I quickly looked at the timer on my desktop, fearing the worse, and simply sighed in relief as I saw that I had, in fact, an hour and thirty minutes before I met my certain doom.

Just peachy.

Somehow, Cameron and I managed to get ourselves into a full-fledged debate over whether or not Hungary and Liechtenstein would make a good couple, my argument that they were, first, fictional personifications, complete opposites, and - here's the part that ticked him off the most - _masses of land._

Apparently, he said I was being too dense with this whole "Hetalia" thing and that I "wouldn't last a minute with those units without him". Now, while I agreed with him one hundred and sixty nine (aha, France was rubbing off on me already, it seemed) percent with that last tidbit, I refuse to believe (or admit) that I was being dense. It just seemed a trifle silly and I was not so much a silly person as I was paranoid and... paranoid. Just paranoid.

Paranoid, yet to some extent relieved when Rosaria came down through the tunnels to announce to us that the Baravians were out of the house (apparently Evangeline was taking a walk through the gardens. Oh, was I lucky today or what?). Now I could actually get some work done without having to hear the incredibly distracting sounds of the house (and Evangeline), thus delaying the date when I'd finally slip up and miss a deadline a-

"Louis, maybe you should come up," Cameron suggested.

_Oh hell no._

"G-Go up there?" I yelped, the ignoring the almost painful stench of my being and the growl of my stomach, "No way!"

"Mary- I mean, Louis," Rosaria started, instantly correcting herself on the ever-so-commonly-made blunder of my name, "I can smell you from down the hall..."

_Well, that wasn't offensive. Not at all. _

Please note that I thought that with heavy, heavy sarcasm.

"Well how do you know it's me?" I said, subtly sniffing my short, short hair and almost vomiting on the spot, _how long has it been since I last took a shower again_..._?_ "I-It could very well simply be the hallways! Or this room! Or-"

"Louis," Cameron hissed, shutting his eyes as if just looking at me made him feel less and less alive, "I think I can safely assure you that there is absolutely _nothing_ in this world that smells exactly like you."

"Thank you," I responded simply, taking the supposed-to-be insult as one of the finest complements I have received from him in quite a while... mainly because it was.

"That wasn't a complement..." he groaned, taking a fistful of my grimy shirt and dragging me away from the computer.

"Woah woah woah what are you _doing_?" I screamed, trying to shove his fistful of shirt away from my person and get my ass back where it belonged - in that chair, "I can't go up there!"

"You seem to be physically capable of dragging yourself into the chair, so I don't see why you cannot get yourself into the house," Cameron hissed, beckoning Maria's assistance in attempting to pluck me from the chair. I, being as _valiantly _persistent as I was as a child, found no better way to prevent myself from unwillingly being dragged into the palace-like estate than clinging to the table which my computer rested atop.

"I ain't leaving!" I whined, ignoring my blunder on the English language and I clung to dear life.

"Why not?" Rosaria questioned between grunts of labor and the nonstop pulling of my abdomen and legs (which, I might add, were starting to hurt quite a bit).

"Because!" I squeaked, gripping the table as I was pried mercilessly away from my comfort zone, "If someone comes out here, who's gonna be able to beat them up? _W-What if they take my Forget-Me stick?" _I wailed, thinking of the big black stick that I had kept in the back of the room; you know, just in case anyone ever happened to stick their noses in places they should not.

"If they-" grunt, "found you here," pull, "they would-" another grunt, "-throw you in the nea- _why won't you let go? - _Nearest jail se-"

This is where they finally managed to pull me off of the table, which sent us flying backwards into the wall. Oh, what fun that was!

You know, after the massive headache.

Somehow, even after my futile attempts to keep myself underground, I found myself in Mr. Baravian's shirt and not smelling like a sewer, as well sitting in the kitchen, swallowing every edible thing that I could get my hands on, even the cold Moo Shu pork.

Heck, _especially_ the cold Moo Shu pork.

"Why are you eating that?" Cameron asked me as he bit into his sandwich.

"'Because it's good," I said in between rabid mouthfuls of Moo Shu. "You want some?" I continued, offering him the container.

"Um... no," he said simply with a grimace, shuddering as I shrugged and continued to stuff my face. _Oh, this stuff is good..._ I beamed as I threw the now-empty container into the trash.

"Well! That was nice, but I really think I should be go-"

The clock caught my eye.

8:29.

_8:29._

"...Damn and blast."


	3. Daniel Backshave

**A/N: I'm sorry this chapter is so short guys - I've been busy helping decorate for Christmas and didn't have much time to work on this ;_; (excuses excuses hubububah). It might be a little while before I get the next chapter up here, so please don't hurt me xD;;. I also want to thank you all for the feedback I have been receiving on the previous two chapters of the story! ^^ Again, I'm very sorry for the lack of writing here, I will try to make the next one longer and much more enjoyable. **

**Enjoy! 3 **

**- SwingingInTheWind  
**

**

* * *

**

"...Damn and blast," came Cameron's voice from behind me, _once again_ sending me out of my skin in fright.

"STOP! DOING! THAT!" I shrieked, punching his arm to enunciate each word as he stood there, his usual stoic expression never leaving his face.

"L-Louis, _please_ calm down!" came Rosaria's panicked voice from the side of the refrigerator.

"Calm down? _Calm down_?" I screeched, my voice elevating an octave higher with each word, something I had no idea I was even capable of doing, "My life is about to be in _ruins_, not that it was all that great beforehand but still, and you're telling me to calm down?" For a period of time, I was completely oblivious to the rapid pace of my breathing and the twitching of every inch of my body, and Cameron suddenly popping up next to me did little to evade the nerves.

"Louis, I highly doubt it's going to be _that_ bad," he said in his bored tone, scanning the room as the doorbell rang.

_Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no. No. _

I looked up at the clock and, much to my dismay, there it said loud and clear - 8:30 am.

"D-Don't answer it!" I yelped, grabbing Rosaria's arm and pulling her away from the door she was currently trying to gain access to, "Maybe if they think we're not home, they'll leave!"

"Louis, we're going to _have_ to open it up before Anne and John get home," Rosaria whined, tugging her arm away from my grip with surprising ease. _Damn,_ I thought to myself as I studied my never-to-be-existent biceps; _I really need to start working out..._

Before I could register what was happening, the door was wide open and standing right there, right in the doorway, was one of the scariest things I have ever seen. He wasn't tall, oh no - he was HUGE; I assume he couldn't even get through the doorway without banging his head on the top, even if he crouched down. Not only was he tall, but hot damn he had some muscle - I assume he could have broken me in half with just the flick of his right pinkie. The big, blond mustache that spread across his face and the look on his face that oh-so-clearly read "This is some SRS BZNS" did not at all calm my nerves. No, Sir, it did not.

"U-Uh... H-Hello, Sir!" came Rosaria's intimidated squeak, "A-And what," she audibly swallowed in terror, "w-what is it that brings you here...?"

I assure you, no one would need eyes to know that the maid was shaking in her flats.

The man looked past her, and as his steel-gray eyes bore straight into mine I began to wonder if he was purposefully _trying_ to stare into my soul and remove any trace of life that I had left in me. Then, he opened his mouth to speak...

"Hillo~!" came an unexpectedly high pitched voice and he... was that a smile or a grimace?

As you can imagine, all jaws instantly fell to the floor at his... his... _unexpected_ greeting. Nobody really paid attention to what he actually said afterwards, they just listened to how it sounded.

"...So," I said as he handed me that large-ass box - the first of many - and gave me one of those sleek electronic signer-pad-things, "...Danielle?" I questioned, trying to pronounce the name written in tiny little black letters on his name tag, which legitimately looked like this: "Daunyiehll."

"No, das not my name," he said in that oh-so-high-pitched voice of his, "Eez _Daneel._ Daneel Baqshief."

"...Alright, Daniel Backshave!" I said with a grin as I signed the little... doobly-doo and handed it back to him, yelling at Cameron and Rosaria to _help me get that damn box downstairs_. I could hear him rolling his eyes in his head before he called out "Vait!"

"Wait what?" I questioned, turning around to face him with a half-assed glare on my face just before a manual was tossed in my direction.

"You need zis!" he said calmly as he threw a manual at my face before turning around, shaking his head, and storming off towards the van that said "FUNIMATION Inc.," muttering what I swore was probably Russian under his breath.

_So my delivery man is a Communist, huh?_

When the three of us finally managed to complete our grand escape into the underground, I couldn't help but notice the title printed in such big, black letters on the front of the manuscript reading "ALFRED F. JONES: User Guide and Manual".

"Hey, Cameron?" I asked him, flipping through the guide.

"Yes?" he answered flatly.

"Who's 'Alfred F. Jones'?"

I didn't even need to turn on the light to see all the color drain from his complexion. I really didn't.


	4. Crate Shipment and Other Adventures

**A/N: Long time, no see, you guys. How were your holidays? **

* * *

It felt slightly comforting being back in my maze of tunnels, despite having to - once again - get used to the natural stench and almost pitch-black darkness enveloping us.

"You're stepping on my foot!" Rosaria whimpered as we made our way down into the abyss with that heavy, heavy box.

"So- Ouch!" Cameron began to apologize as he banged his head against one of the walls.

"Who's touching me?" I shrieked, letting go of my end of the box to swat at who - or _what_- ever was prodding me in the side. As you can imagine, it was not the wisest move I could make, and that was confirmed when the edge of the box collided with my foot. "Oh son of a _bitch!" _I yelped as my right foot screamed in agony, "get it off, get it off!"

Several moments later, I was limping my way to the cushioned seat, illuminated in the blueish glow of the computer screen, with my two comrades following behind me, grunting in pain as they heaved the box over to the light.

"Right then," I sighed as I plopped down in my seat, turning myself around to face them when they managed to hoist the box in front of me, "so... should we read the manual now or what?"

"Well..." Cameron began in between desperate gasps for air, "I... I guess we should... yeah... you start reading... ugh..."

"But you know I hate reading!" I whined in protest, the excruciating pain in my foot not helping my mood.

"You're the," pant, "the, the one with the..." gasp, wheeze, "oh god..."

Apparently, I wasn't the only one who needed to work out more.

"Fine, fine," I sighed as I opened up the manuscript, letting my eyes glaze over the pages, "but you never answered my question!"

"What question...?" Cameron replied, straightening up and clearing his throat as he wiped the droplets of sweat off his brow with the back of his hand.

"S-She asked you who this 'Alfred' is, Cameron," Rosaria said simply, tugging at the sleeve of her dress and shifting uncomfortably, apparently trying to decide whether to rest her weight on either her left leg or her right, swinging a hip whenever she changed and _why was I noticing this?_

"Ah, yes," he said, straightening out his suit and coughing into his closed fist, "Something tells me you didn't read any fanfictions, Louis..."

"Fanfictions? Why should I be reading those? I have work and... and..." I struggled to think of another reason as to not reading any fictions on the topic at hand, determined not to let his mind wander and actually believe for a split second that I was, perhaps, too wrapped up in watching the anime with all of its stupidity to do anything else (which, I assure you, I was not), "and... and you know I hate re-"

"Yes, yes, _I know," _he hissed in annoyance, gritting his teeth and shutting his eyes as he strained to keep himself from shoving me into a wall headfirst and proceeding to beat my head in with my prized Forget-Me stick (although it was painfully obvious what he wished he could do, what with the way his hands curled to fists as his arms hung stationary at his sides). He then sighed in annoyance and pointed at the box, "You know who America is, correct?" I did not need a mirror to know that my face was now a grimace.

"Oh god... him?" I snarled, introducing my face to it's new mistress - my palm, "Of all the ones I could have ended up getting, I got _him?"_

"It pains me to say it," _is that bastard _smiling_?_ I thought to myself, "but yes."

"God damn it all!" I groaned, leaning back in the chair and beckoning the two servers to my side. "Alright... so I can call him a fucktard! That's not terribly bad, is it?"

"Well-"

"Rosaria, just agree with her," Cameron huffed, "it's much easier."

"A-Ah, yes..." she said with a nervous little giggle at the end. I continued skimming the page and shrugged.

"Alright, programming... this looks interesting..." I muttered as I read the tedious little texts on possible jobs he could obtain. "... I guess he'd be an, an... an _interesting_ salesman...?" Cameron simply shrugged as Rosaria wandered over to observe the box.

"What's this 'Postal' setting?" Cameron asked, narrowing his eyes at the text and pointing to the words "_Postal (locked)"_.

"You honestly think I'd know?" I hissed back, searching somewhere for an explanation. I could obviously see why the "Mature" setting was locked, but I didn't even know what "Postal" meant. _Post officer? What, he can be a mailman now? _

"Ah, here we are," Cameron said, swatting away my finger which was lazilly running across the text and pointing to the last paragraph on the page, "'The last mode, _Postal_,'" he began to read aloud, "'is extremely dangerous and extre-'"

"Shut up, I can read!" I growled, swatting away his hand as it appeared to be my turn to do so.

"_Ruthless, malicious, prone to enraged screaming, and unlikely to sit down long enough for you to get him out of _Postal_..." now why does that sound like Cameron on a bad day?_ I asked myself, biting the inside of my cheek as I read on.

"... Well..." Cameron said, swallowing audibly, "That, ah... that doesn't seem good..."

"U-Um, Louis...? Cameron...?" came Rosaria's quiet voice from where the box stood, "I, and... h-how are we supposed to open this?" Cameron immediately took the manual from my hands and skipped back to the first page.

"Well in the manua-"

"Forget the manual!" I cried, suddenly getting up from my seat and walking over to the box, "The sooner we get him out, the sooner we can probably loose him in the tunnels or something!"

"B-But I do-"

"Now come here, Rosaria. Help me get this damned box off the top," I said, pointing to a much smaller box that was resting nonchalantly atop the larger bo- actually, I suppose it would be considered more of a crate.

"Ah, y-yes, certainly," Rosaria nodded, helping me hoist the box off of the crate and down to the floor.

"So now we just open it?" I asked, poking the wood and searching for some sort of door, or lid, or bright red button which read "Self-Destruct".

"I'm not sure if that's a good idea," Cameron said, his voice stoic and monotoned.

"You're not a good idea," I grumbled back, grinning madly when I found the lid, "here goes nothing."

Within a nanosecond of removing the lid, I was tackled to the ground by a six-foot, one-hundred-something pound _cartoon character._

"Hero!" he cried out in joy as he practically crushed every bone in my body with those deadly arms of his.

"Ack! No, no no no!" I squealed, thrashing about like a fish out of water as my brain sent off flaring warning signals: _WARNING, WARNING! UNBEARABLE PAIN! LACK OF OXYGEN! I REPEAT, LOSING OXYGEN FAST! NEED AIR TO FUNCTION PROPERLY! KICK THIS BASTARD OFF OF YOU!_

"Aha, hahaha!" he chuckled gaily, _was he mocking me?_ I asked myself in disgust, "Why're you going all red?"

"BecauseI_can'tbreathe_," I somehow managed to choke out as I tugged and pulled at his arms, _oh god just GET OFF_.

"You can't breathe?" he replied as he stood up, a dose of panic flooding through his voice, "that's not good!"

And then the bastard dropped me.

"There you go!" he said cheerily as I tried to ignore the snickers and giggles coming from the butler and the maid, "Now you can breathe! You see, since I'm the hero, I let you live, 'cause that's what heroes do!"

I hated him a _lot_ less in the anime, I really did.

"You _dropped _me!" I snarled, picking my bony body up from the ground, "You just freaking _dropped_ me!"

"Yeah, but you can breathe now, right?" he answered, that god-damned smile never seeming to leave his face.

"...yes," I said grudgingly, straightening out the slacks I had _borrowed_ (not stolen, borrowed) from Mr. Baravian's wardrobe and slicking back my hair, still damp from the much-needed shower, "but that's no excuse!"

"Hey, where are we?" he asked, poking around my space and waving in a chipper sort of manner to the two in the back, practically beaming when Rosaria giggled and waved back in response.

"Hell," Cameron replied simply, covering his mouth as an awkward silence fell upon the three of them. The silence, however, was soon replaced by giggles and snickers.

"I like you guys!" Alfred said fondly, clapping a hand to Cameron's back in the uttermost fashion of male respect.

"It's not... _funny..." _ I sighed in annoyance. I, personally, did not understand why they didn't like the underground - it was quiet, it was secluded, and you could end up wherever the hell you wanted to go if you just took a tunnel or two. I mean, sure, the smell took some getting used to, and the lack of certain resources (i.e. hygiene, hot meals, etc.) could prove to be a pain every now and then, but other than that the place was perfectly fine. At least, it was fine until I ended up with a bubbly giant sharing my space, of course.


	5. Shut up!

Trying hard not to get up and strangle the newcomer, I turned back to the old desktop as he chatted away with the maid and the butler, doing my best to ignore the sounds of giggles and huffs and sudden exclamations along the line of "and I'm the hero!" - which, I can assure you, was _not_ as easy as one would suspect, seeing as the chatterbox was within fifty-mile radius. I then noticed on my laptop the old timer, the timer that counted me down to the arrival of _this freak_, was still ticking, but now with a new time slowly and steadily diminishing: _43:59:02_. I studied the changing numerals for a few moments, trying to convert the times into ones I were more familiar with, and gave up after a few moments. _What does it matter? _I thought to myself, _I mean, 43 hours is more than a day, so the next one won't be arriving tomorrow, right?_ I sighed heavily, the thought of another crazy, obnoxious... _thing_ living in what I now called my abode putting a major damper on my already-not-too-hot mood.

"Hey, hey hey!" came that voice, that _wretched, blood-boiling voice_ from over my shoulder, "I never asked you your name! And I should totally ask you your name, because what kind of hero doesn't know people's names, right? Right, average citizen? I'm right, right?" I responded promptly with a groan. "Of course I'm right! The hero's always ri-"

"_Shut up!" _I groaned again, banging my head on the keyboard and sliding it around a few times, successfully managing to spell out the word "kjskfgalsf';sgjldfk;ld'powieruy34htksejhlkw4tj" on the manuscript. I felt some sort of accomplishment, however, hearing the whimper-like squeal from the crazy blond.

"Erk!" he squealed, and I could practically sense his smile reappearing on that face I all-of-a-sudden wanted to punch into the wall, "Dude! You just shouted at me! You're not supposed to shout at the hero! Ahaha, no worries, I'll come out of this," (whatever "this" was) "strong and free, like a true American hero!" I banged my head a couple more times on the keyboard, praying that somehow my "subtle hints" would manage to break through that skull of his - which seemed to be, at the moment, tripling in thickness by the minute.

"I said _shut up_!" I groaned once more, ignoring the throbbing pain in my head and focusing more on trying successfully to spell out an everyday English word by means of the flat surface of my forehead and the keys on the keyboard. So far I had managed to get "aura" and "wart", and I was curious as to how many more four-letter words I could get while trying to get the buffoon's obnoxious voice to pause at least o-

"_You've got mail!"_

"Hey, look at that! You've got mail!" Mr. Obnoxious Blond echoed, making the ever-growing urge to smack him across the face grow even more powerful by the moment. _God damn,_ I thought, _if only Rosaria and Cameron were still down here, I could shove him on them - they like him, right?_

"Yes, yes, I _know_," I snarled through clenched teeth as I clicked on the little pop-up at the bottom of the computer-screen, informing me for the third time that minute that I had a new email, "there's no damned need to be so excited about it..."

"Yeah, well, given your living conditions," he started, his grin turning more into a lazy, taunting smile as I studied his reflection on the screen, "I didn't really expect you to have a social life!"

"Why, you little-!"

"Hey, you never told me your name!" At this point, any doubt that the "8D" emoticon did not fit this... _creature's_ character evaporated into thin air. I rubbed my temples and sighed as I debated with myself on whether to get into the complex explanation of "_hi my name is Mary and I'm 23 years old but I like to be called Louis for no apparent reason other than the fact that I like to be called Louis so don't call me Mary_", or simply state "_My name's Louis_." As you could have guessed, seeing as I was already quite agitated and really did not wish to be bombarded with any more of the young fellow's chatter, I sided with the latter.

"Right..." I sighed, staring at the computer screen as I was met with the little rainbow circle Cameron once called "the Spinning Wheel of Death" in his usual murmurings, "I'm Louis." There was a very rare moment of silence that fell upon us, yet it ended all to quickly when he promptly asked me how to spell it.

"So, is it L-E-W-I-S or L-U-E-S or-"

"L-u-e-s?" I echoed, turning my head to face him, seeing as I had never heard of my nickname being spelled in such a way.

"Yeah! You know how some people want their name to be unique so they take an ordinary name and spell it really funny, like this one time, I was talking to this chick-"

"Alright, alright! Geeze, do you never shut up?" I shrieked, throwing my hands up into the air in defeat, "it's spelled L-O-U-I-S, happy?"

"No silent letters or anything?" he asked me, and I asked myself where he had gotten a pencil and paper from, seeing as I certainly didn't keep any down here - maybe it came with him... I'd have to take another look at that manual.

"Um, no, should there be?" I asked him, now relieved to see that the "Spinning Wheel of Death" had disappeared and my hotmail (yes, yes, I still use hotmail) homepage was slowly loading, row of pixels by row of pixels.

"Nah, I'm just wondering!" he replied in his usual chipper tone, beaming up at me like one of those, those... little puppies in the box, yes, those little puppies that you'd pass by in a box labeled "Free Puppies!" and you'd look at them, your five-year-old self would look at them, and then you pear down and smile right back... and when you look at your mother and go "Mommy, can I keep one?", she looks about nervously and shifts in her standing, and your brother joins in with your pleading looks and you think-

I'm getting nostalgic, my apologies.

I rolled my eyes when I turned back to the screen, which was now about halfway loaded, and I once again banged my head on the keyboard. "Come on, god damn it!" I practically sobbing in anguish, when I felt a little corner of paper rubbing against my elbow. I, somehow, managed to pry my eyes away from the computer and look down at the white slip of paper, picking it up in curiosity and holding it to the light...

"Dear Louis," I read, unfolding the paper to find a very child-like, cartooney smiley-face beaming at me.

… _and the squeals of joy when you walk home with your brother, a blissful little dear in your arms which brings such a smile to your face..._

"From, Alfred."

I studied the picture for a moment, almost rolling my eyes and I read the little subnote next to the smiling icon ("you look like you could use one"), and grumbled slightly under my breath after noticing that "Alfred" was now nosing about through my spa-

_What?_

"Hey, hey hey _don't touch that_!" I yelped, leaping up from my seat and practically strangling the six-foot-something young man who was currently flipping through one of my old manuscripts.

There was a squeak, followed quickly by a crash, and, before I knew it, there were little glass shards of whatever-the-hell-that-happened-to-be-previously all over the floor.

"... Sorry..." Alfred whimpered.

"Sorry? _Sorry?_" I screached, "How _dare_ you, you good-for-nothing little-"

"Back off, you fucking limey!" came a very mechanic, seemingly-robotic little voice from behind me. Instantly, upon hearing that scratchy voice and ending up with goose-bumps sent up my arms at the speed of light, I turned around, curling my fists out of instinct, lest this _thing_ attack me... and, lo and behold, just when I thought things couldn't get any weirder, I was face-to-face - well, actually, more or less lower-rib-cage-to-face - with a gray alien.

A _short_ gray alien.

"What... is... _that..._?" I asked,cautiously - for all I know, this thing could have laser-beam eyes and super-strength of unknown proportion, or maybe even-

"Fuck off, I'm no goddamn _thing_, you navvy!"

… Maybe even a potty mouth, who knows?

"_Navvy?_"

"Oh, oh, that's just Tony!" Alfred said with a grin, looking as though that was the answer which would solve absolutely fucking _everything_ in the God-damned world (you see, this is why I shouldn't be placed around little gray aliens - I end up talking like them. Not pretty.).

"Tony? You mean this thing has a name?"

"He's not a _thing!_" Alfred gasped, clutching the little gray alien - Tony - in a hug, "He's an _alien!_ From _outer space!_"

"This is Albany, not Roswell," I groaned, introducing my forehead to it's current girlfriend - my hand. At the rate this was going, my forehead and my palm would probably already be at thrid base by the end of the day.

"Oh, we're in New York?" he asked, his eyes lighting up like _those stupid puppies..._

"Fuck New-Fucking-York! I fucking hate it! It's a goddamn piece of shit, I tell you! Just like this kid!" Tony began to rant once more, and I felt a migraine approaching me like the way an Amazon Warrior would approach the Sacred Band* - furiously and in disgust.

"Aw, now, that's not nice, Tony. Louis is a cool guy! He's letting us stay here for... a while... I think... yeah!" Alfred cooed at the alien, "so be nice to Mister Louis!" I smirked just a bit, feeling quite smug, and put my hands on my hips, puffing out my chest ever so sli- wait.

"_He?" _

"Yeah, you're a guy, aren't you?" Alfred asked in, what I assumed, was a rhetorical question. Nonetheless, I had my own answer ready for him.

"Why you little prick... _can't you see I'm a girl?_" I yelped, gesturing to my chest in a "look at these things!" sort of way.

"... I don't see anything."

"You don't s- that's impossible!" I scoffed, looking down at my chest... to find that I could, also, see absolutely nothing worth noting on my chest. No boobs.

"... So, you're a guy, right?"

"_Shut up!_" I moaned, stamping my foot in a poorly-held-back tantrum, "Shut up shut up _shut up!_"

* * *

**A/N: **And, after a month's hiatus, chapter five! (About time, I know, I know) I apologize to you all for taking oh-so-long to update my story, but school was being an asshole and piling me up with essays and tests and all sorts of malicious, disgusting crap.

For those of you who didn't take Latin...

1. Amazon Warriors - the Amazon Warriors were a group of female archers who could best be defined as "the earliest femnazis known to mankind". They were followers of the Goddess of the Moon and the Hunt, Diana (Greek - Diana) and cut off one of their breasts in order to shoot their arrows with little to no difficulty.

2. The Sacred Band - the Sacred Band was a group of 300 homosexual men who fought for each other in every battle to the very death. As you can imagine, they didn't last a second against the Roman Empire.


	6. Frère Jacques

Hours later - at least, it certainly seemed to be hours later - my forehead was, forevermore, technically glued to the tabletop surface as the two creatures behind me continued to bicker.

"Butbutbut-"

"I don't fucking care, whatever the fucking reason we're here is, I don't like it! This place reeks like shit!"

"Tony, pleeeease!"

"Don't you 'pleeeease' me, Alfred! I'm goddamn pissed and I wanna get the fuck out of here!"

"I want to get out, too, but at least we're not in that box anymore."

"Fuck, I _liked_ that damn box. It was fucking comfy, you bitch!"

"But we were all smushed together and it was _oh it was so small_ and-"

"_I don't care._"

"Then why don't you go _back into the box?_" I suddenly shrieked, jumping out of my chair and pointing at the crate in the corner, semi-pleased with the momentary silence my sudden outburst appeared to have brought along. That is, until Alfred burst into tears.

"No, no no noooo! I-I don't like the box, it's s-so... it's s-so scaaary!"

"Oh, man the hell up!" the Alien growled, lightly smacking the six-foot-something man's back, which he could only reach due to the fact that, in order to argue with him properly, Alfred had crouched down to his knees.

"I-I-I, it's so _tiny_ and dark and, and... _Please don't make me go back in there!_" he wailed, launching himself at my person and clinging onto my leg like the little child he was acting like. Naturally, I was starting to feel a tad bit ashamed, and, since I knew that it would be no use to keep my composure, I moved my hand downward to awkwardly pat his blond little head.

"Erm, it's okay...?" I started. _Woah, his hair's so... soft... _I thought to myself, _isn't he supposed to be, like, a robot or something? What the hell _is_ a "unit," anyway? _My wonders were quickly interrupted by another sniffle, and I was now sure that his grip was, most likely, cutting off all circulation in my leg. Thankfully, the chair was right behind me.

"No, I'm s-supposed to be the Hero!" he moaned, burying his face in my calf - which, I can assure you, felt quite awkward.

"Well, uh..." I began once more, struggling to find words as I continued stroking his hair, "...sometimes, in a hero's life, they... are put in, erm, big, scary boxes... and..." _Think, Louis, think!_ "And... oh! But the important thing to remember is that it's not _your fault." Alright, that'll work... hopefully..._

I grimaced slightly when I could no longer feel my right foot, reaching behind me for the chair as he continued to weep. "B-But..."

"But what?" I grumbled, pulling the chair up behind me.

"I'm hungry!" he said, surprisingly chipper, seeing as only two or three seconds ago he was weeping like a baby. I rolled my eyes in annoyance, _oh, dear Buddha, what did I do to deserve this?_

"If you're fucking hungry," the Alien said, "then fucking eat!" I looked over at him and, after a few moments of squinting, noticed that he... he was eating the slime... from the walls...oh, my God, _ew!_  
"But you _know_ I don't like slime! I want a hamburger!"

"Then go to Jacques," came a cool voice from behind me, sending me, _once again_, out of my skin.

"_Cameron!_" I shrieked, whipping my head around in a manner that told me that, had I had the ability and strength, I could have given myself whiplash.

"Yes?" the steely-eyed butler said cooly, his hands fingering his tie.

"... Where's Rosaria?" I asked him, noticing the bashful maid wasn't behind him or at his side, like she usually was. A while ago, I asked him if they had a thing, but he simply glared at me and told me to do what I do best. When I asked what that was, he shrugged and replied simply: "Complaining." As you could probably tell, that was a _major_ bruise to my ego.

"Up," he said in that flat, monotoned voice, pointing at the staircase which led to the actual mansion.

"Hi, Cameron!" Alfred practically squealed, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hands and waving afterwards.

"Hello," Cameron said, his voice sounding much less oppressed as he spoke to him. _Don't tell me he's fond of him,_ I thought to myself, shooting Alfred a disapproving glare that he, apparently, found hilarious. "Louis, don't look at people like that."

"But I didn't do anything!" I whined, aware of the bumbling fool doubling over in poorly-restrained guffaws.

"I don't care if you did anything," Cameron sighed, his green eyes looking down at his nails, "just don't _not _do anything."

"What-"

"- is the time?" he said, looking at the tiny digital clock that was located on the screen of my computer. "Ah, good. I still have fifteen minutes."

"For what?" Alfred asked, apparently recovering fully from his previous outburst of laughter.

"My break," Cameron answered nonchalantly. I swear, there were some times I really wanted to slap him, those times being many and quite hard to control, but (somehow) I managed. "Well, then," Cameron sighed, even though it felt more like _I _should have been the one who was sighing, "what was the shouting about?"

"I'm _hungry,_" Alfred moaned, doubling over to his knees and clutching his stomach. However, before Cameron could so much as open his mouth to speak, a seemingly minuscule (compared to Cameron's awkward height, that is. Although, now that I think about it, _anything_ is minuscule compared to Cameron) flash of gray had tackled the butler to the ground.

"And _who _the _fuck_ do you think _you_ are?" came that robotic, metallic voice that made me want to rip my matty hair out by it's roots, fistful after fistful at a time, within about ten or so seconds of first hearing it.

"Ahgaha!" came a gasp/cry of shock from the fallen butler, said butler who writhed about on the grimy, uncleaned floor. "My clothes!" he gasped once more, trying to shove the tiny little brat off of his chest, as he squirmed about on his back, letting out a wheeze which very well might have been "ohsweetKrishnayou'" as the little bastard-of-an-alien sat itself on Cameron's chest, yelling and shrieking in his face. Had I not been laughing so hard, I, certainly, would have slapped the specimen at hand and (attempt to) wrench him away from one of the only people I could call a friend of mine, however, as you probably guessed, the feeling of schadenfreude overwhelmed my being at that time and I was left helpless and laughing.

"What?" Tony cried, pointing a finger at the butler in accusation and stabbing the bridge of his nose with each word he spoke, which made their conversation sound entirely like as follows:

TONY: You callin'-

CAMERON: Ouch!

TONY: me a fu-

CAMERON: Ahaow!

TONY: -cking fatass,

CAMERON: _-do take note of the fact that I am, at the moment, unable to translate hideous yowling into plain English, so I decided to keep it in it's original form this time.- _Yehagaflgshnhhf_oy_!

TONY: - ain't ya? You-

CAMERON: Aieek!

TONY: - fucking creep! Fucking fucker, sneaky chode-of-a-bitch!

CAMERON: _AH_ahahaa, no, no, not again- YEOUUHOUCH! _-at this point he is wailing like an infant.-_

TONY: Fucking _sneaking up behind us- _

(I feel that you can understand the ten minutes following that leap-and-pounce move executed by the alien with just that one snippet of painful conversation, therefore I shall include no more of it - this tale already has far too much cussing in it as it is, and I don't want to overdo it.)

Eventually, however, Alfred plucked Tony off of poor Cameron's chest with grace (sort of) and remarkable ease, settling the little alien back down in front of his banquet of slime and patting him on the head.

"Tony, that wasn't nice, either!" Alfred huffed, crossing his arms and glaring at the little gray creature from behind his spectacles. "Cameron's a cool guy!"

"You think _everyone _isa cool guy!" Tony yelped, crossing his little arms and trying to wrench himself away from the six-foot-something fair-haired man.

"So? Everyone _is_ a cool guy!"

"That makes absolutely no sense!"

The two continued to bicker as Cameron simply sat there, gasping and wheezing, on the ground. Eventually, he had found the strength to pull himself back up and lean against the desk I was currently clinging to so I wouldn't fall over, headfirst, onto the ground by means of the force of my laughter.

"This isn't funny, Mary..." he panted softly, harshly shoving his glasses up from the tip of his nose back to the bridge, where they were usually stationed. Under normal circumstances, I would have killed him - or, at least, I would have _tried_ to kill him - for calling me by my birth name, but I was in too much of a ridiculous haze of mirth to take note of the lack of alias. Eventually, however, my laughter began to die down and I could soon sit up properly, and, in a matter of time, the underground soon bore a very awkward silence.

"I'm still hungry." I groaned loudly at the sound of Alfred's voice - a part of me was still wishing these past five-or-so years was still nothing but a dream, that I would wake up from it all in my nice, cozy, warm bed, back in Connecticut, my brother still an angelic soul who would never dream of becoming what he had, no unit-folk, etc. etc...

"- listening to me, Louis?" came Cameron's voice out of the fog of daydreams which had clouded my mind.

"What?" Cameron sighed in annoyance and muttered something under his breath which sounding quite a lot like "chucking fun grass" before placing his hands on his hips and staring into my pupils.

"I said," he began, ignorant to the thumb-war the two newcomers were partaking in behind him as he spoke, "that I'm going to take them up to see Jacques-"

"_What?_" I said once more, now more in shock than in confusion, "what, what... why the _hell_ would you do that? You don't know who's up there!"

"Neither do you, Louis," Cameron answered, rubbing his left temple in frustration as he closed his eyes, "but there's food up there, and I'm sure Jacques could disguise them as, say, kitchen staff-"

"No _fair!_" came Alfred's voice from behind him - apparently, he had lost this thumb-war of epic proportion. "I demand a rematch!"

"... anyway," Cameron began once more, shooting the two a pestered look from over his shoulder, ignoring the simultaneous cry of 'it wasn't me!' from the two... creatures. "You're welcome to tag along, if you wish." I shook my head instantly, pulling myself towards the computer once more.

"Oh, no - you dragged me up there once, and look what happened then!" I exclaimed, pointing to the - now bickering - duo of distraction behind him, which resulted in an exasperated sigh from Cameron.

"Oh, be _nice_ for once, Louis. What on earth were you expecting them to do - sit there quietly in a corner all day?"

"I was expecting them to get some sort of job and get me some money, that's the only reason why I clicked on the damn thing!" I hissed, making sure as to not let the other two, now wrestling on the floor, overhear my words. I was, at that point, wondering whether or not these "units" I had ordered were really the robots I had suspected them to be, seeing as they possessed emotions which where, in fact, quite human.

"What? You're too lazy to go out and get a real job?" Cameron snapped, a little puddle of anger forming in the pools of green protected solely by his glasses.

"Oh, like you're one to talk!" I answered promptly, pulling my legs up close to my chest and trying to hide myself in the egg-like sitting position I used to curl myself up in when I was all but five - back when the "I can't see you; you can't see me" mentality was more acceptable than, say, now. "All you do is run around and fetch coats and things. 'Yes, Master!'" I mimicked in a deeper, more nasally voice than that of which I possess, straining my vocal chords doing so. "'Would you like some tea with that, Master?' Or, or, 'why yes, Master, I would most _certainly_ enjoy massaging your feet as I fluff your massive ego-"

"That's it," Cameron growled, seizing me by my arm and dragging me out of the chair, "you're coming with me."

"Don't 'cha mean 'us'?" Alfred asked excitedly from behind me. Oh, how tempted I was to swing my free arm around and sock him in his face - alas, I bet he would have kicked my ass to the ground if I even tried to do something like that in less than ten seconds.

"Yes," Cameron nodded curtly as I was brought out of my comfort zone for the second time today.

"But I'm not hungry!" I whined, swinging my arms about and kicking at the air.

"I wonder when you'll notice this," Cameron began, a despairing sigh lacing through his words, "but I don't really care. Tony, help me drag the mooching rat upstairs."

"Now you're fucking talking, limey!"

"_Mooching rat_?" I shrieked, maneuvering my legs so that the tiny, gray, alien thing wouldn't be able to touch me. Unfortunately for that plan, he helped drag me up anyway.

"Well, you're certainly not a chinchilla."

"Aha, good one! You could totally be my sidekick, 'cause I'm always the hero, but Tony's kind of sick of being my sidekick, so... yeah!"

_Oh, _I thought to myself upon hearing that, _I wonder __why__..._

Jacques Degrés, for those of you who have not guessed yet, was the head chef; no, he wasn't French-made, but he was, in fact, a Quebecois. I think he said he was from Pointe-Claire... or maybe it was Chambly... Whatever, it made no difference. Jacques was a small yet burly sort of man; a scraggly moustache dancing above his upper lip and a soul-patch dangling beneath it, both the same shade of deep, rich chocolate as his short, cropped hair. He was, in fact, the first man with a mustache who I ever knew that was not some sort of scary Heath teacher or pedophile, as he was, despite his rugged and rural upbringing, a very well-groomed, well-trimmed, well-mannered and well-educated sort of man. I still do not entirely trust him, though - he said he would try to force-feed me chicken. I _hate_ chicken, and I don't really care for lamb, either. Pork and beef, however, when marinated right, aren't that bad...

When the three of them finally managed, despite my screaming like a child and badly-thrown/weak attempted punches, to drag me up the stairs and, with some help from Rosaria, sneak themselves into the kitchen, we were met with a rather unusual sight, even on Jacques' standards. If you must know what exactly it was, the head-chef was screaming his tiny lungs out at ten not-as-high-up-on-the-cooking-list chefs, the ten chefs of which were seated on the floor, picking up broken shards of glass. I would tell you what he was saying, but I do not speak any sort of French whatsoever, which puts us at a slight disadvantage.

"J-Jacques!" Rosaria stammered upon seeing the chef (I forgot to mention that she, being curious, had followed us into the kitchen. I suspect she was craving a sandwich of some sort, possibly a panini.), "Wha... What on earth is the meaning of this?"

"Eh?" Jacques, looking up from where the chefs were crawling on their hands and knees, picking up what seemed to be zucchini flowers from the floor alongside with the glass, offered, a slight pink grazing his cheeks when he noticed that he did, in fact, have company. He hissed something at the chefs in French again, and, as if all one body, the ten chefs stood up, faced the five of us, bowed simultaneously and left for another area of the kitchen. One would have thought the chefs had rehearsed their exiting routine daily upon seeing it for the first time, as did Alfred. "Oh, oh! I 'ave company, do I, now?" Jacques sighed dramatically, studying us all once again and, apparently, taking quite an interest in the fray little Tony. "I did not know it was 'alloween..."

"J-Jacques," Rosaria said again, eyeing the little alien man closely, "I-I-I don't think that's a costume..."

"_Mais bien sûr!_ Of course eet eez, _ma chère._ Zuch a cute little costume for a cute little boy, _oui?_" Jacques cooed, reaching out with his hand and lightly pinching Tony's cheek. As you can imagine, our little alien friend did _not_ like that, not at all.

"Hey!" he shrieked, slapping the Canadian's hand away from his person and jumping at least a foot back, "Watch it, you bosch!"

"Excuse me?" Jacques screeched in response to the slur, rearing himself up to his full height, which was, I will admit, not very tall, but still plenty tall enough to tower over the alien. "You better watch zat littel mouz of yours, kid... I killed a man once," he paused dramatically, extending a finger in an offending sort of gesture, "with _zis _finger!"

"I thought it was thumb," Cameron whispered to the maid beside him, "he hasn't been paying much attention to _Ratatoullie _lately, has he?"

"Are you joking?" Rosaria giggled softly, "he's been obsessed with that darned movie for years..."

"But he didn't reference it right," Cameron protested.

"That's because he actually _did _kill someone with his middle finger, Cameron," Rosaria mumbled back.


End file.
